


the informant and the executor

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/F, Murder, Post-Canon, Pre-Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 17:46:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18628186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: Nancy knows more about the corrupt lab scientists than she ever wanted to know. She's just not sure how to make it stick.Then Kali shows up.





	the informant and the executor

Nancy is good at research, and she’s good at gathering evidence. But gathering evidence isn’t always enough to get the bad guys behind bars. It’s two years after she got the evidence against the corrupt folks at the lab when she finds out that nothing ever happened to them. They just faded into the background until the media died down, and now they’re back working at the lab as if nothing ever happened.

El is upset about it. Nancy isn’t really El’s friend, doesn’t see that much of her these days now that she goes to school and has a social life of her own. But Mike tells her about it.

Nancy can tell that he’s thinking, brooding. She gives him a Look. “You’re not going to do anything about it, okay?”

“Someone needs to do something about it!”

“I’ll take care of it.” She dusts her hands off. “I did it before, didn’t I?”

“You had Jonathan then.”

And since the breakup, Jonathan is definitely not an option. Nancy sighs. “Just trust me. I’ll take care of it.”

She isn’t sure what she can do about it that will stick, but she starts researching again. Using legal methods and less legal methods. If she’s going to take them down, she’ll need to know what they’re doing.

She learns more than she ever really wanted to know. But she can’t figure out what to do about it.

Then Kali shows up.

* * *

Kali is about the same age as Nancy. She’s five foot even, Indian, and a little (a lot) punk, with the side of her head shaved and a streak of purple in her hair. She has one tattoo, though, that isn’t part of the aesthetic.

Nancy looks at the numbers on her wrist solemnly when she bears it. They’re stark, neat. Written with clinical precision. She wants to kiss Kali’s wrist as if a kiss could make it all better. She wants to curl her hand around Kali’s pulse and keep it safe forever.

“Jane and I are the same,” Kali says. She won’t call El “Eleven”. Nancy can understand why. “We were both hurt by those men. Now she’s living her own life, thanks to you I hear. But I work to take them down. I’ve heard you have the same objective.”

“I want to take down the lab,” Nancy agrees. “They’re… they’re evil. What they did to you and El is unconscionable.” It’s a big word, but it fits the situation better than any other she knows.

Kali puts a hand on her shoulder. The hand is small and hard. “We might get more done if we work together.”

El vouches for her—El has an odd look in her eyes whenever they’re in the same room, a sad-happy look that Nancy doesn’t want to interrogate, it’s none of her business—so Nancy agrees. She meets Kali’s team, a team that helps her to “fight the enemy”. They’re a mismatched bunch. Nancy thinks of the small army they have here in Hawkins that fought back the Demogorgon, the Demodogs. Teenagers, preteens, and a couple adults, none of them exactly trained for it, but thrown into the fight because no one else would do it. She can respect a team like this one.

She gives them all the information she has.

“What are you going to do?” she asks.

Kali says, “We have our methods. Don’t worry about it. And thank you.”

Within four weeks, Nancy hears that every single person she named is dead. Some she hears about in the papers. Some she hears about in the news. One she hears about on the radio while El is over at the house, hanging out with Mike. Mike looks at El, and then at Nancy, and then back at El. El just looks at the radio with wide eyes. But when the announcement is over, she seems oddly relaxed. She smiles a little.

Nancy isn’t sure what to make of it all. She’s glad El is happy. But…

Had she known, she wouldn’t have sent Kali and her team out like a gang of hitmen to do her dirty work. She feels icky thinking about it. El is happy, but Nancy itches.

She writes down all the information she gets about the scientists’ deaths, and continues her research, unsure what exactly she plans to do about it.

* * *

Kali comes to visit some time after the last man is dead. She’s mostly in town to see El this time. But she stops by the Wheeler house, has dinner with them. Nancy tells their parents that Kali is her friend. It’s not a lie.

Later, in her room, Kali perches on the bed as if she’ll have to run at any second, or defend herself from an attack. “You’ve heard what we did to them.”

“Yes.” Nancy stands awkwardly in front of her. “You killed them. Using the information I gave you.”

Kali says, “You don’t need to feel guilty. None of this is your fault. I would have killed them sooner or later. Your information just helped me do it faster. Which means they had less time to commit atrocities. Think about it. The world is better off with them dead.”

“I never said I disagreed with your methods. I just didn’t know.” Nancy swallows. “…it’s probably for the best.”

Kali relaxes enough to smile. “Thank you.”

“I should thank you. Our town is safer now with them gone.” And El, especially, but she knows Kali loves El enough that Nancy has no need to thank her on El’s account.

But she still feels icky. “You could have told me what you were going to do.”

“And you would have been fine with it?”

“I would have helped,” Nancy says.

“You?”

“Yes, me. I could have… I could have done something.”

“You did fine,” Kali says. “Your information was all I needed.”

“I don’t need to keep my hands clean,” Nancy says. “There’s blood on them already.” None of it’s human yet, but she has no more pity for human monsters than for demogorgons.

Kali looks at her consideringly. “…next time, then. If you have more information, you can come along. But I won’t see you until then.”

“Won’t you?”

“I can’t keep intruding on Jane’s life,” Kali says. “She doesn’t want all of this to be part of it.”

“You could come to me, though,” Nancy says. “Any time you need help with research. Or someone who’s good with a gun.”

“You’re good with a gun?”

“I’m great,” Nancy says.

She’s actually still pretty mediocre but she likes the way Kali’s looking at her now.

“All right then,” Kali says. “We’ll see about it.”

Nancy sits down next to her and hugs her. “I really am thankful,” she says. “We all are.” Kali smells like city, like fifty different kinds of smoke. Nancy inhales her as she squeezes. Then they somehow overbalance and end up lying on the bed with Nancy half on top of Kali, and Nancy isn’t really inclined to move.

“Jane didn’t say you were clumsy,” Kali says. But she hasn’t moved either. Her head is nestled against Nancy’s neck. “To be fair, she’s always very brief.”

“Mm,” Nancy says. “Yes, she is.”

They talk about El for a while longer, though Nancy’s mind is barely on the subject. Lying next to Kali, she knows she is stealing moments of a life that isn’t really hers—not yet, at least, though she wonders how she could get it. Kali isn’t hers yet, and Nancy wonders how she could get her.

**Author's Note:**

> I just feel like Nancy would be really down with murder okay.  
> Comments welcome! Or come chill with me on tumblr at convenientalias.


End file.
